How to Use The Morpheus Rig

This month our MA students are working on a piece of 11 second character animation, suitable for entering in the monthly 11 Second Club.

The 11 Second Club has a useful Resources page, directing students to a variety of character rigs which are reliable and well-supported.

One of these is the Morpheus rig, created by Josh Burton.  Some of our animators are using Morpheus for this month's competition, so we've created a useful guide to some of the main problems with the Morpheus rig, and how to fix them.

Autodesk Releases Maya 2017: Mental Ray Is Out, Arnold Is In

Autodesk has just released a new version of Maya, titled Maya 2017 (I know, we're only half way through 2016) - which now features an entirely new system for rendering your images. 

The old ray trace renderer, Mental Ray, has been dropped, and Autodesk have chosen Arnold instead. For those of you have have never used Arnold before, and might have some catching up to do, Animation Apprentice student Lee Caller has helpfully put together a YouTube playlist of videos that will walk you through the basics of the Arnold renderer. 

Arnold is a great renderer, and no doubt a significant improvement on Mental Ray. However, there is a catch, and it's a pretty big one.